” A federal judge made a ruling this week that has a decidedly Orwellian touch to it.

US District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled on Tuesday that the San Antonio Northside School District can require that its students wear devices with RFID locator chips embedded in them while on school premises. The decision has raised privacy concerns among conservative and liberal privacy-rights groups.

The saga began when 15-year-old magnet school student Andrea Hernandez refused to wear the device while attending Jay High School. School officials expelled the sophomore for not complying with the rule that is required of all students on campus. The case ended up before Garcia who also refused to block the student’s expulsion pending review by the courts.

The Rutherford Institute of Virginia represented the student in federal court. The institute said that the ruling was clearly in violation of the student’s privacy rights and it would appeal the decision.

“We don’t want to see this kind of intrusive surveillance infrastructure gain inroads into our culture,” ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said. “We should not be teaching our children to accept such an intrusive surveillance technology,” said Stanley, according to Reuters. ”